by Sanne DeWitt (edited by Hadas Baldwin)

I recently returned from a "Volunteers in Israel Program" serving with Sar-El at the Ramle Base called Batzap. I had a terrific experience which enriched me tremendously. I hope that I helped Israel a bit but I know that I got an enormous amount out of my trip, far more than I gave. I would like to encourage everyone of you to go on this program. It will change your life.

Batzap is located is located near the city of Ramle. The Batzap motto is: "IM VELEMA'AN HAYEHIDOT", Together and for the units. (We are here to give service to everybody.) In July 1948, Ramle was conquered by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Operation Danny, and today it has 65,000 inhabitants. It has an Arabic character and has a large Mosque very close to the base. The morning call to prayer from the Mosque woke us up early in the morning in plenty of time to get dressed and get to breakfast.

After arriving in the airport we changed money and then rented cell phones, a really inexpensive and necessary piece of equipment in Israel. It was all easy and convenient. After renting the cell phones we stepped outside the gate and were met by Pamela Lazerous, the Sar-El coordinator who was ready with a van to drive us to Ramle where we arrived at about 8 PM, after supper. We were greeted by a crowd of volunteers who had arrived in the morning or on the previous day and were already in uniform, so we were very impressed. We walked to a group of trailer, or caravans, which were divided up into bedrooms with two bunk beds and one single bed per room. The rooms were tiny and we were barely able to squeeze in with our luggage. Our barracks were completely mixed in with the other soldiers and we used the same facilities. Many soldiers live off base in Ramle.

The "facilities" were a short walk from our barracks and there was a little house with one stall and one shower for all of us ladies (about 20) and several other women soldiers. The next morning I made a sign "WOMEN" and put it on one of the men's bathrooms after cleaning it up. One has to be creative. I needed to use the facilities at about three in the morning and ran smack into a soldier with a machine gun. It was strangely comforting but a bit disconcerting, as I was in my nightie. He didn't give me a glance.

In the morning we all trekked to the mess hall, about a 1/2 mile from our barracks. The hall held about several hundred people in long rows of tables and we had to squeeze by M16's and Uzzi guns to get by to get a seat. At this point I became aware of the other soldiers who were 18 - 20 year olds looking like a bunch of college kids. Most were really friendly and spoke to us in English, if they were able. Some of our volunteers spoke Hebrew so we actually had conversations. The usual questions were "What are you doing here? Why did you come? You are so comfortable in the USA, why do you come to this dangerous country?" They just couldn't understand that we were Zionists who care about Israel and want to show support for Israel. We were simply overwhelmed and their responses made the whole trip worthwhile. They said "We didn't think that Diaspora Jews cared about us. We thought that American Jews supported the Palestinians. We love you. Asher Koach!"

The food at breakfast was the usual diced cucumbers and tomatoes and eggplant. The luke-warm sweetened tea was pretty awful but volunteer Nathan Shuster, bless him, showed me how to sneak into the officers' mess hall and get some coffee. He saved my life! Lunches were great with hot soup, salads, spaghetti, rice, chicken cutlets and vegetarian fare. It was kosher, of course. Desert was fruit and the beverage was water.

After breakfast we had a brief meeting with our Madricha (counselor or house mother) a cute young soldier who wasn't used to bossing volunteers around. She told us to go to flag raising which occurred at 8:15 every morning in a large patio. The soldiers all stood at attention, sort of, and the officer of the day gave them some kind of a pep talk which sounded as if he was very angry. Then came roll call.

We were issued uniforms, boots, blankets and sheets (no towels) and were told to report for work after putting on the uniforms. I was assigned to the tank helmet detail. There is more to helmets than I had previously thought. First, the old helmet lining and and ear phones have to be removed. The helmets then need to be plastered and painted and then new liners need to be installed along with new earphones. The earphones have to be rewired, of course. The work was not intellectually stimulating but we had lots of fun and camaraderie while we were working. Our work group changed from day to day but a core group of four of us, John, Gershona, Melanie and I, stayed for the whole time except on the days when were were bused to another base to assemble gas masks for an emergency order for thousands of masks for kids.

Our Fridays and Shabbat were free and we were supposed to return to the base by 10 AM on Sunday morning for work.

We went on a bus tour of the north and visited a Druze village which was having an olive harvest. There were two presses, one powered by a donkey and the other powered by an electric motor. The extra virgin first crush was bottled and I was tempted to buy some but I didn't want my laundry anointed by oil. The paste from the olives in formed into cakes and used for fuel or fertilizer. Carts of olives were brought to the presses for the crushing. It was a strange mixture of biblical and modern. We were very close to Tzfat but didn't go there but we went to Rosh Pina for dinner.

We had to get up at 4:15 AM on Sunday in order to get back to the base in Ramle by 10 AM. Our bus was full of soldiers going back to their bases. We stopped at a station where they sold coffee and delicious chocolate rolls and pizza and I bought some breakfast. The counter person tried to cheat me of 20 shekels in change but I caught him. He just laughed and gave me a 20 shekel note which was already in his palm. Oh well! We both laughed. We got to the Tel-Aviv central bus station and then changed to the bus to Ramle where we assembled by the McDonalds and were met our Madircha. We had some time to kill before our van arrived from the base so I took some photos of people coming in and out of the station. There were religious Jews, Moslems, girls in mini-skirts and boots, and soldiers of every hue. It was the most multicultural scene that I have ever seen.

When we returned to the base we heard details of the massacre at Hebron which had happened on Friday night and got an eye-witness report from one of our volunteers, Dr. Mark Richman, an anesthesiologist, who had rushed to Hebron to help. It was a terrible slaughter and 12 Israelis were shot dead. Islamic Jihad supporters in Gaza City celebrated the terrorist attack. Reports were partial at this point and I determined to visit Hebron to see the site for myself. We were all sobered when we watched CNN in the Moadon that evening. Can you believe that Israelis watch CNN rather than Fox News? By the way, we shared the Moadon with the soldiers who mainly wanted to watch soccer. We had a friendly agreement with the soldiers that we got to watch CNN at 9 PM. If there was a big game on, they got to watch until the finish of the game.

The volunteers ranged in age from 19 year old Nora, a rock singer from New York, to one old gentleman who was 87 years old. The age distribution was bi-modal with one peak being young people just out of college to the second peak retired people. There were very few people in the middle. There was one pair from Holland, a young student with her grandmother. The volunteers were from Australia, Indonesia, Canada, South Africa, USA, and one from Germany originally from Poland. There were several Americans who originated form Russia and one Australian who originated from Russia. Several of the volunteers were making Aliyah and were spending time at the base to acclimatize themselves. One volunteer came from Quatamala and another from the Dominican Republic. There were 6 Christians in the group, most of them staying for 6 months. One Christian young man, Eric, was from Norway who told me that Norway had the reputation of being the most anti-Israel country in Europe and he wanted to show that not all Norwegians were anti-Israel. Reverend Bill, a retired college professor and preacher, was planning on spending 6 months in Israel. There were two black volunteers, one from South Africa (actually a "colored") and one from San Francisco. Some of the Jewish volunteers were orthodox and got up early in the morning to lay Tifillin and one orthodox woman chose to wear a skirt rather than pants for her uniform. Most of the Jews were from Conservative congregations and were Zionists, obviously. The volunteers were from all professions including students, a doctor, engineers, teachers, realtors, lawyers, carpenters, a tugboat captain, microbiologists, and psychologists. It was an interesting mix.

I spent my second weekend (a 3 day weekend) partially in Jerusalem and partially in Kfar Saba. I was on a bus which was headed for Jerusalem when we heard of the suicide bus bombing. The driver diverted our bus to an Arab village on the way up to Jerusalem where we waited 2 hours near an ancient cistern until he drove us to the Jerusalem central bus station. We had been on our way to Hadassah Hospital but the trip got aborted because of the attack. Things were muddled up in Jerusalem so I changed my plans to go to Haifa took a bus to the French Hill section of Jerusalem to spend the night with my cousins. The bus drivers were all very pleasant and helpful to me and told me when to get off at the right stop. The next morning I took a bus to the Jerusalem central bus station to go to Kfar Saba. The security around the bus station was high and the station was ringed with police vehicles. There were two checkpoints with metal detectors before the entrance so it took a long time to get into the station but I did make it through after having my luggage checked 3 times.

On our last week on the base we were told that there was an emergency order for thousands of gas masks so we were bussed in to another base which had gathered in volunteers from several bases. We assembled gas masks for kids and for adults. My job was to replace the syringes with an new lot of atropine, an antidote for nerve gas. we had to replace the filters and make sure that the seals were tight and that all of the parts were intact. Finally, the kits had to be sealed, the lot numbers a dates pasted on and then package all of the kits into large containers. We all tried to not think of the possibility that these kits would be used. General Davidi, the person who conceived of and started the program, came an gave us a speech thanking us for volunteering. The commander of the home front also cam to talk to us. There was a wonderful violinist who played after a marvelous banquet in our honor. At the end we all sang the Ha Hatikvah. It was a grand experience and were really felt honored for our effort.

In general, we had a program after dinner each evening. We were treated to a wonderful lecture given by Steven Kalmek. I would love to have him come an talk to the IAC's in the Bay Area. He had a wonderful grasp of Israeli history and politics and was a thoroughly charming person. Most of our programs were given by Sar-El soldiers and they ranged in topics and in quality. There get-togethers were a good way of getting to know the soldiers and get their point of view.

I was lucky to be able to celebrate Chanukah with my cousins in Jerusalem. We lit an oil Chanukiah the first three nights and I had the opportunity to meet with the huge family (a real tribe of over 50 descendants) for the 3rd night. My cousins are modern orthodox and one of their sons is a rabbi. There was lots of food and singing and the little kids had a great time. It was a perfect end to my trip.

I would like to encourage everyone to go to Israel and participate in the Sar-El program. It is very worthwhile and rewarding. All you need to do is buy a ticket.

Please forgive the typos. This is my first, and only, draft.